Essay by Eric Worrall
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t curse these silly electric cars under my breath once or twice.”
‘Brutal:’ EV Road Trip Features Bundling Up in Winter Clothes to Avoid Running Heater
ALANA MASTRANGELO
17 Apr 202311A Business Insider reporter learned how “brutal” a road trip in an electric vehicle (EV) can be when he was forced to bundle up instead of using the heater in his car to try to maximize his range. After the trip he commented, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t curse these silly electric cars under my breath once or twice.”
Business Insider’s Tim Levin drove the new Toyota bZ4X electric SUV from New York City to Washington, DC and back, and discovered that he was forced to spend roughly a quarter of his time charging his electric vehicle. But it got worse from there.
“I hit the road back to New York on a chilly morning with 176 miles of range. When I went to turn on the heat, the indicated range plummeted to 125 miles,” Levin wrote.
Therefore, Levin had to make a decision: stay warm and charge twice, or turn off the heat — given the effect that it has on the vehicle’s battery life and range — and deal with the cold. He chose the latter.
…
Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/04/17/brutal-ev-road-trip-features-bundling-up-in-winter-clothes-to-avoid-running-heater/
What a miserable experience.
Australian drivers also experienced their share of EV woes recently;
In Australia EV owners were forced to queue at Gundagai, while returning from an Easter holiday;Easter weekend photo sparks concern over Australia’s electric vehicle future
10/04/2023
A lengthy queue at an electric vehicle charging hub in Gundagai on Good Friday has given a glimpse into Australia’s EV future “unless we get some urgent planning underway”.
Matthew Bailes, who was driving from Melbourne to Sydney in his Tesla, snapped a photo of the situation.
“It was a 15 minute wait,” he told Tony Jones, filling in for Neil Mitchell.
…
Read more (includes a radio interview): https://www.3aw.com.au/easter-weekend-photo-shows-australias-ev-future-unless-we-get-urgent-planning-underway/
At least Gundagai wasn’t a freezing cold trail of misery like Tim Levin’s New York to Washington DC trip, that comes later in the season in Gundagai.
What can I say? The only way to make EVs work in a remote town like Gundagai without massive wait time inconvenience is large subsidies, to fund enough chargers to prevent queues during busy periods like holiday peaks. And probably onsite diesel generators to provide the electricity, if EVs ever become a significant presence on the roads.
Or maybe EVs could tow a diesel generator on a trailer, to provide a continuous popup charge during long trips.
Tom Nelson’s interview with journalist Kevin Killough, who told a similar story about traveling by EV in Wyoming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRpKyknCLPc
You do not want to trust your family to a wintertime EV trip across Wyoming. It is cold and remote. They want you huddling in your 15 minute city, anyway.
And all the beneficiaries of the 15 minute city will have a second home in Wyoming or Montana.
And yet, in their 2023 IRP PacifiCorp hints at helping ratepayers purchase EVs. Electric schoolbus too. Now what did little children do to deserve that?
School buses were already uncomfortable and unsafe. Adding dependency on lithium battery charging on an inadequate generation/distribution system is just asking for trouble. Put them in the Northern Tier (and concentrate your risk anaylysis and mitigation on hot weather), and we are looking at real trouble.
Just the Left-wing nutters’ way of aborting the little ones that got away.
PacifiCorp puts it in their rate base coming and going.
Super Long Range Tesla
ROFL 🙂
Don’t know if I’d like to be involved if that got rearended whilst charging
You’ll have to ask U.S. Transportation Secretary for the answer to that.
I bet it adds like 50 miles before you have to stop and fill the generator tank and wait for it to charge again.
I love that image of a practical solution to a self imposed problem. (:
You know what, with a bit of engineering and design, do you think the charger and fuel cans could be incorporated ‘within’ the vehicles design? Maybe reduce the size of the running battery a little bit, you know, just to fit it all in. Hey I can even suggest a name for the range extender option. Let’s call it a ‘Hybrid’
Reminds me strongly of cars with wood burning “gas” fuelled contraptions on the roof/in the boot – funny how technology doesn’t always “advance” …
Like this?
Nice. I had never heard of that before.
I think I’ll stick with gasoline, though diesel is easier to make for the doit yourselfer.
Great link!
And these! COAL AND WOOD BURNING VEHICLES OF WWII (robertsarmory.com)
None produced the Hp achieved with gasoline. But any car is better than no car I guess, even if you have to push it up a hill.
Wow! I thought I had seen everything. That’s a new one to me.
Much thanks! I learned something new.
Good photo of a Reality Check. I was in Reno, Nevada during the last “Burning Man” event on the desert north of town by about 100 miles. EVERY EV returning from Burning Man (you could tell by the coating of alkali dust) had the support in the back loaded with gas containers and a generator.
Burning man? Is that a customer of a Chinese EV? 🙂
The generators were for power while they were at the gathering in the desert. There are no facilities there.
Then why didn’t ANY of the ICE cars have the same?
The EV drivers have grown accustomed to a higher quality of life than the simpleton ICE drivers. 🙂
The generator in the picture appears to be woefully inadequate. Tesla currently brags of 100 kW-h batteries. If you needed a rechange after 4 hours (less if you used your heater). That would take a 25 kW generator and would require about 20 gallons of fuel. The one in the picture is but a pittance of that. Maybe it could run your electric shaver after a night on the side of the road (if you caught it before it ran out of gas).
With 15 min cities, you just need a very long extension lead!
In a few years you might be seeing a lot of that in California….much to Gov. Gruesome’s chagrin!
Not likely, Newsom is already outlawing the sale of gasoline powered generators in CA. Diesel and propane generators are sure to follow.
HAS already outlawed them, effective real soon now.
Nevada is real close.
Close is relative. Nevada is not as close for an EV owner as it is for an ICE owner.
I keep asking people what an electric car is. Is it one?
Generally speaking, think Golf Cart…Guilded Golf Cart
thieves stealing charging cables worth £700
‘It’s a bit of a rip-off’:
potentially hazardous‘ EV charging cables
Companies in China’s key lithium-producing hub have moved to reduce lithium output following the recent price collapse amid weak demand for electric vehicles (EVs),
No subsidies no subsidies no subsidies period they are the problem not the solution. If we stopped the subsidies the whole renewable fiasco would collapse. Don’t do anything to prolong the lie. The sooner it fails the better.
Single women here get somewhere on the order of $1000/month for each child. One wonders why there are so many children living in fatherless households.
A professor at Duke seems to feel that a $14T reparations program that he is pushing, will solve that problem.
Electric cars at their current state of development are NOT suitable for road trips. As a 2nd and commuter car and other local trips oh yeah, but you don’t need a four door sedan for that. Use your gas car for road trips and more than one passenger.
You going to pony up and buy my second car? I’m on a retired guy’s budget.
We taxpayers already have, it is electric! And that is 100% wrong.
When I see that stylized “T” it has the same effect on me as a Vote For Biden bumper sticker.
You wouldn’t like driving around Boulder.
Boulder is a federal government town, what with the USGS and NCAR being there.
I didn’t say anyone should be required to own one, or that gas cars should be outlawed. I merely pointed out that as a 2nd car electrics have some desirable features.
Plug in hybrids in a low cost electric market where your daily commute round trip is less than the battery range would appeal to me back when I was a working fool. My range to/from work was under 10 miles for most of my last 24 years of work. I was in Vegas and could have ridden a bike for many of those years if I didn’t care about getting killed on the Vegas roads.
Now retired, I have no use for such a car.
No, all you have demonstrated is that electric cars are not totally useless.
All of the features you mention can be provided more cheaply and more conveniently by a small ICE vehicle.
Yes BEVs have a place in modern society – on a golf course.
In Britain until recently electric milk floats were used for delivering milk to the doorstep. That and as golf caddies are all EV’s good for.
Can an electric golf cart out-run an alligator?
Is the alligator electric or ICE?
I think the ones at the back of the queue will be waiting a lot more than 15 minutes.
The answer is a hybrid. Friends of mine have one, and it uses its ICE engine to charge its batteries. It can go around town as an electric vehicle, then the rest of the time it runs very efficiently on petrol. And of course when it’s on petrol it recharges the battery.
What this means, of course, is that it is 100% petrol-powered (no plug-in). Now to my mind, it would be way cheaper to simply build an ICE car with the extra efficiencies, and the difference in cost is the price of virtue-signalling.
And of course, if you don’t care about the virtue-signalling, then the answer isn’t a hybrid at all, it’s a normal vehicle.
Hybrids make economic sense and add convenience by needing fewer visits for refuelling. In many driving situations they use about half the fuel for distance covered of a standard ICE vehicle of similar size. The small price premium is more than offset in fuel savings and lower maintenance costs over a few years.
If my trusty diesel sedan ever gives up, I will be looking for a hybrid.
Im not a scientist but I just do not “get” why a KERS type ICE, diesel preferably with a very highly efficient BMW type engine, with updated/uprated Cat, has not gained traction – trillions of infrastructure spending not needed? Please educate me why this has not happened from a scientific POV? (I I would love to see the CO2 offset from such vehicle – not Nut Zero but potentially more “sensible”?)
Am I dreaming here ?
No. The exhaust of the 2015 Freight Liner I was driving having a Detroit Diesel was cleaner than the air quality in most big cities in the US.
From a scientific POV, CO2 is the only air molecule plants use to live and grow. The fallacy is demonization of the only method plants have to collect Carbon, make sugar, and grow. Scientifically, CO2 density so low some plant life struggles. CO2 is massively beneficial, but only marginally detrimental. The dumbest, and I do mean dumb, indoor pot grower I know understands this relationship. He installed a propane burning CO2 generator in his grow house which substantially improved yield. He found it on ebay. See for yourself, just search “co2 generator greenhouse” on ebay or amazon. You’ll see dozens of choices.
You do not need to be a scientist to see this as a preposterous claim. Everyone learned this in 8th grade Biology. CO2 allows the Carbon cycle to return to plants the Carbon in the sugar animals consumed.
I guess we could call it the sugar cycle if that’s easier.
When asked, several greenies have told me that the ideal level of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0ppm.
I recently replaced an ICE Rav4 with a new hybrid Rav4. Got about 25 mpg with the old Rav and about 38 mpg with hybrid version – 33 mpg in winter 42 in summer. I priced out the cost difference between a new ICE only and Hybird based on $3.00/gal fuel and my annual driving distance and should break even in about 6 years. So far I think hybrid is a good option but I’ll never consider a BEV.
My wife recently replaced a 15 yo Nissan Versa, with a brand new one. Both are gasoline powered.
I don’t remember exactly what the old and new mileage was, but the difference was easily noticeable.
Under government pressure, car mileage has been increasing for all cars.
The UK be banning hybrids as well as normal vehicles leaving only the battery option.
As Dave Fair said above, “They want you huddling in 15 minute cities.”
You know if you removed the battery and electric motor your car would weigh less and the ICE would be more effective at moving it around.
Just saying.
Some data. I have owned a Ford AWD Escape hybrid since 2007. Battery still going strong. Comparable vehicle was the V6 Escape—both have about 206HP and class 1 tow. Downsized hybrid engine to I4, engine cycle from Otto to Atkinson. Lost torque made up by electric machine. Hybrid price premium over V6 was $3000, made up on day one by that years hybrid tax credit. Hybrid gets 32 city/28 Hwy at 70mph. V6 gets 18 city/22 Hwy. Hybrid uses regular, V6 uses premium. Price difference here is over $1/ gallon. The hybrid gas cost saving to date are over $10k. No brainer.
On the flip side, my son’s 2007 Escape hybrid was plagued by electrical problems all revolving around the battery. And finding a mechanic to work on it was practically impossible, we always had to go to a dealer. It had so many problems we finally had to replace it. Any gas savings we might have had were eaten up by maintenance costs.
Not to mention your time, which is worth money. Without competition for repair work, you probably paid top dollar for the repairs.
Subsidized primarily by taxpayers who don’t own EVs. If Biden gets his way, that tax pie will have to be divided up equally by everyone at the party, not just the early adopters. I question the economic viability without tax subsidies.
A problem with a vast exansion of EV chargepoints is presumably that they will stand idle most of the time, and therefore not be cost effective. In other words it only works if there is free money on offer.
OPM only lasts long enough for the grifters to get out of town.
“A problem with a vast exansion of EV chargepoints is presumably that they will stand idle most of the time…”
If only there was a way to recharge automobiles so quickly a small number of chargers could service lots of vehicles in a reasonable time.
I remember reading somewhere that back in the early days of Henry Ford, electric cars had a battery pack that could be “easily” replaced. Just slide out the empty one and slide in a fully charged replacement. Took just a few minutes, just like returning an empty crate of beer and getting a new one. Today’s EVs are too over-engineered, with the batteries totally integrated into the car body.
If you think a charging infrastructure is a problem, developing the infrastructure for each charging station to change these batteries safely will make your eyes water.
Then there’s the problem of having dozens, if not hundreds of batteries made for each charging station, on charge, waiting for the Easter/Christmas rush when everyone wants to travel.
Bad enough finding the minerals to make every vehicle on the planet electric, but making mountains of batteries to sit waiting to be used is just not possible.
Chinese car manufacturer Nio has developed a ‘smart battery swap out system’ and is planning to open 1000 of these in China this year. It has recently opened one in Norway and is planning expansion into the US in 2025.
It still isn’t a gamechanger for EVs and not as convenient as filling up at a petrol station. I’m no fan of EVs but we need to stay aware of developments on that front.
I’ve seen lots of “good” ideas flounder when they try for mass production.
I’ll wait until there are a few 10’s of thousand of these things operating for several years in the real world, before calling them a success.
Tesla has built a worldwide network of chargers. In the US I don’t think there are any places you can’t get to using the SuperCharger network.
YOu may be able to get there, but how about getting back?
AND?
That doesn’t change the fact that you will need to sit and wait to get a charger when busy, and also while charging.
Had breakfast with a still sharp 95 yo. Sharp being relative since he is a liberal. He was talking up EVs, “they charge in 15 minutes”. But he didn’t know that was a 40% charge, if it was a supercharger, and that every “supercharge” shortened the life of the battery. The propaganda is effective.
He wants a new car and I did suggest a plug in hybrid because he rarely goes more than 20 miles in a day. He could probably get by with a plain, compact plug in only EV because since he never does any long distance driving anymore.
Word to the wise:
He said he planned for his retirement but NOW, at 95, he does not have the excess cash he had in the past. He just didn’t plan to live so long.
We have planned to live forever, only use “profits” from our investments when needed and leave the nest egg to our kids, grandkids after we pass. At least that is the plan. With Brandon’s inflationary plans, who knows.
Well, I “know”…. Funds have lost a ‘ton’ since he entered the WH ‘annex’.
Supercharging still takes 20 minutes, and it’s murder on the batteries life expectancy.
Not a solution.
Not likely, given how heavy lead acid batteries are and how little charge they hold.
The batteries are integrated into the car because they are part of the frame.
Make them replaceable and you will have to beef up the frame to replace the support now provided by the battery pack. This will make already heavier electrics, even heavier.
Empty beer crates don’t wear out. Batteries do.
Empty beer crates only way a couple of pounds, your battery pack could weigh 1000 pounds or more.
“Empty beer crates don’t wear out. Batteries do.”
Nonsense, Entropy affects everything, even beer crates, Mark. So yes, beer crates can and do wear out.
I’m no fan of EVs, and whilst I agree with you on many things, there are occasions, such as this, when you let your biases blind you into speaking a load of rubbish. Nio has over 1300 powerswap stations in operation right now and have been operating such stations for 5 straight,years without fail! Nio’s cars aren’t much heavier than other EVs as far as I can determine. All your claims about battery swapping being an impossibility don’t stand up to the reality of what Nio has managed to do. This has been pointed out to you before and yet you insist on spouting the same nonsense each time the subject comes up. Sad to say, but when reality so easily counters what you are saying, it doesn’t reflect well on you.
I never said it would be impossible, I said it would never be economic.
Most problems can be solved by throwing enough money at it. That doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.
Pretty much the same thing. You keep inventing all these “reasons” why battery swap can’t happen, (the latest being that they would need a design that would cause the cars to be even heavier than existing EV designs) and yet the real-world example of Nio shows that every one of your so-called reasons aren’t the game stopper you image them to be (the latest real-world counter being that there’s no indication that Nio’s cars are noticeably heavier than any other comparable EV)
Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m right with you in not being a fan of EVs, but imagining “problems” that the real-world has proven to not be the problem you think they are doesn’t help anybody.
BTW, Though Tesla seems to have abandoned the idea of battery swapping (largely due to lack of demand vs charging at the one facility that they’d set up for it), the Tesla Model S, like the Nio, was designed for it and doesn’t seem to be all that heavier than any other comparable EV as far as I’ve been able to determine.
In short, and contrary to your beliefs, it is entirely possible to make a car/battery swap system on a mass market scale (the proof is in Nio actually doing it) but it requires first designing the cars and batteries with such in mind, which is not how most existing US EVs were designed, which is why you’ll never see it take off in the US
Even if they were designed for it, there are other reasons why it might not catch on in the US marketplace. just because something is possible to do, doesn’t mean it’s something that the market would necessarily want. Which is why this government driven push for EVs hasn’t managed to lift EVs beyond a niche in the market (and why wherever subsidies end, even that niche-level demand drops significantly) short of outright banning ICE, likely never will. The market isn’t demanding expensive EVs that have massive short-comings compared to their ICE equivalents (in many areas, but price, range, and refueling times are some of the biggies and they’re the same reasons ICE took over the market from EVs a century ago despite EVs having come to market *first*).
At the moment, it seems that fast charging shortens the life of the battery, so you end up paying more long-term for the convenience of not having to spend as much time charging, or waiting to charge.
Well time is money. Which would you rather do: wait longer or pay more?
My answer: Neither, give me a good old ICE where I don’t have to trade off time for money like that.
Anyone died in a snowdrift yet? Won’t wait for an answer as i’m suffering range anxiety – only 60 miles left and must nip down to the gas station for five minutes.
Difficult to have sympathy for those with ev woes . .
Virtue signalling has its drawbacks.
No EV is a universal plug-and-play 100 percent replacement for a petroleum-powered vehicle. Maybe someday but not today.
This should not be news.
Tesla is closest because Elon knew the importance of a reliable high-speed dedicated charging network.
AND the endless profits they will provide him for years to come. When McDs allowed him to use their parking spaces, probably for free, it was a win/win.
Elon mastered the art of collecting funds from the incumbent OEMs penalties. A charging network is much more fun to install if someone else is paying for it.
Clearly no EV can perform as well as ICE vehicles when towing, travelling out of town, providing reliable, comfortable (survivable) travel through winter, an affordable insurance rate, or a method to extinguish the fire.
Who can name a revolutionary, transformational product that displaced a superior incumbent by legislation?
“Waste heat” from an ICE or even from incandescent light bulbs isn’t “waste heat” in winter.
So depending on where one lives, and what season it is, as Einstein would say: the “losses” or “inefficiencies” are relative.
There was a mid rise building outside of DC that used the lighting to heat the building in the winter. It was built al least 30 years ago, I think as a gimmick.
I made a number of ferry trips during the Easter Triduum. On one there was a tourist’s Tesla that would not move, that all the other vehicles had to maneuver around.
The US and EU are seeking to impose renewables on South Africa which has huge coal reserves. They believe EVs will help solve the problems. However, the regular theft of electricity cables and recently the collapse of 12 steel electricity pylons – after some of the lower steel bars were stolen – means that the supply of electricity is regularly being cut off from homes and industry and rail transport. No amount of renewables will solve the problem of theft and sabotage. Of course the bright sparks in Western countries are clueless.
The lack of charging points is not the problem because once you have installed all of them where is the electricity going to come from?
No worries mate. I know several folks in the electrical generation business. They will be happy to serve you all the electricity you can pay for.
But only in the daytime?
I think the idea of pulling a trailer with a diesel generator is the key. With some development it could be called a hybrid and might be a valuable part of the car market. Then the market would provide insight about an option of a plug in cable for additional charging.
Maybe marketeers could come up with a name like Prius. In my experience they drive quite well and are economic on petrol consumption. And I admit to feeling suitably smug taking off from a standing start.
Then parking places will have to be lengthened, repainted, and result in not being able to serve as many people.
Here is a simple but overlooked fact, running the heater on an ICE vehicle technically makes it more efficient.
Heating uses what would otherwise be wasted energy. In real terms turning the heater on is not going to improve your fuel use, but are now no longer wasting the heat, so… technically more efficient.
Using an electric vehicle to heat your vehicle and what are you using? Energy that would otherwise be used to give the vehicle motion?
Muse on that EV fans.
And, there have been times when my engine started to overheat pulling a load uphill in the Summer, and I was able to get extra cooling from turning on the heat and rolling down the windows.
Waiting to charge the EV won’t worry these folks. Gives them more time to contemplate how, by driving the vehicle, they are helping all of humanity by directly reducing severe, deadly weather events caused by vehicle emissions that — drive — “climate change”.
Yet, they will never “contemplate” just HOW their EV came into existence… and the ‘costs’ thereby. It is called Critical Thinking, and they have none.
Correct — There is nothing green about EV’s..
I note from the Gundagai photo, that the dark silver car (next to the last car), has back-up transportation on its roof.
Somehow the Petrol car (joined later by diesel) beat off steam and electric powered cars in the race to replace the horse 1900 onwards. No subsidies required and few if any objections to making all those horses redundant. With no subsidies the Electric car would never take off, it is a technological dead end that has already lost the battle once.
“maybe EVs could tow a diesel generator on a trailer, to provide a continuous popup charge during long trips.”
Let’s put some numbers on this. The average speed (miles driven/time driving) in the US is about 35 mph. At that speed, the dominant loss is tire rolling resistance. Rolling resistance is about 1% of the weight on the tires. In order to propel the vehicle without battery discharge, and also keep the occupants warm and entertained, the diesel engine would have to weigh about the same as the one in a diesel-powered car. It would also require about the same amount of fuel, too. That means you would be adding 2 more tires to the rolling resistance losses, each with about the same as the ones on the car. You would also be adding about the same aerodynamic losses as half a car. In other words, you would experience about a 50% increase in total fuel losses, compared with a diesel-powered car.
“tow a diesel generator” or perhaps install one in the car. Even better, bypass the middle man and use the diesel generator as an engine. You never know, that just might work. 🤣
Come on you know that would be evil and wrong, because then it would be an internal combustion engine vehicle! 🙂
Liberals are quite comfortable with re-defining words to advance their agenda. They do it all the time!
Using the heater reduces the battery life and range.
What about in hot weather, how much will the use of the air conditioner reduce the battery life and range?
Will we be seeing naked EV owners in the summer to extend their range?
On I 15 between Vegas and Cedar City I see many Teslas. I must say that very few of the drivers would be more appealing to look at sans clothing.
I’m reminded of the time I drove to Vegas in July in my 4WD Scout, which didn’t have air conditioning. While in Death Valley, I stopped briefly in the park headquarters to get some cold drinking water and cool down before getting back on the road. I was surprised to see what appeared to be a German couple walking around in what looked like their underwear.
AC is more of a wash, since running the AC reduces the range of an ICE vehicle as well.
On the other hand heat reduces the amount of charge a battery is able to deliver, while having no impact on the amount of energy in a gallon of gas.
“forced to bundle up instead of using the heater in his car to try to maximize his range”
and that was this month? try it again in January on a much colder day
I have yet to see any drivers in rural Colorado, Wyoming or Nebraska in their cars sitting at the charger who look like they are enjoying the roadtrip or ownership.
Technology moves by fits and starts. Something that looks like a great idea often, after being put into use, proves to be impractical. An example is the rotary Wankel engine which powered some Mazda RX-7 sports models from the late ’80s until being dropped in 2002. Various manufacturers produced chain saws and other small tools powered by the Wankel engine but the technology never caught on and isn’t offered to consumers today. Naturally, there are efforts being made to revive the product, not in the market place but through government grants and subsidies.
Some kind of Wankel-like failure occurred. Another link.
Good point, technology and science are littered with false starts, wrong “avenues” etc.
The problem, will be, how long before they realize, and how much will it have cost us?
Rotaries were from the 70s. Metallurgy improvements could probably make a Wankel longer lasting, but ultimately efficiency was always the major drawback.